


Choosing

by agapi42



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 12:24:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11967336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agapi42/pseuds/agapi42
Summary: Missy has one more choice to make.





	Choosing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IriSelkie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IriSelkie/gifts).



She'd thought she was going to die. She'd thought she and the Doctor were both going to die, together. 

Her younger self was far too dangerous to be allowed a universe with no-one to stop him, so she'd thought about killing him, realised it made sense. She'd already done it so she had to do it. Be her own midwife.

Maybe their own executioner.

As the lift rattles downwards and the fire fades from her bones, letting the cold seep through her, she considers dying, letting this body expire and remain, a rather beautiful arrangement of purple on green until it burns up in the coming war. Her past self had done it to spite the Doctor. She would do it to save him. She's been so much in flux these past two weeks, torn between her past and what might be, could possibly be her future. She's made her choice. But who knows what regeneration might do to her?

She thinks of meeting the Doctor again, as a future self that doesn't even care enough to tell him she wanted to stand with him, a mistake best forgotten, the Doctor's worst fears confirmed.

She doesn't want all her work to be undone.

She thinks of the Doctor never meeting her again. He thinks she's out there somewhere but life after life passes and he never sees her again, not to thwart, not to walk on a river bank with. He thinks, this time, the break is permanent.

She doesn't want all her work to be undone. 

She thinks of him dying, properly, like her, not too far away, never ever knowing what she had decided to do. She thinks of a universe without the Doctor. 

What if he dies and she doesn't? She thinks of her future selves living without him, wonders if they'd break, wonders if they'd be strong enough, wonders what form the madness of grief would take.

Her past self doesn't think she has a choice but then, he's an idiot. She remembers that vile instrument of his. (One of the first things she did as Missy was drop it in a volcano. It repulsed her, though she didn't quite understand why. She invented something much more elegant.)  
She remembers it, the isomorphic controls recognise her and she's had plenty of time to tamper with it and remove its ability to disable regeneration. Admittedly she had thought she was protecting the Doctor at the time but, as it turns out, they're more self-destructive than either of them realised.

Which makes them a great match with the Doctor, the Doctor who's marched off to die for this insignificant little homestead, the Doctor who's spent the last two weeks fizzing and sparking with suppressed regeneration energy. It's crept under her skin, pooled with her own, strengthened it. She can feel it.

Who's the damn hybrid now? She'd choke out a laugh but her body's still, teetering on the edge.

 _Death is for other people, dear._ No, she won't give up. She'll live on. She'll be her, a new her. Maybe she'll hurt less, won't have to fight so hard. That'd be nice.

The Doctor was never very good at regeneration. But he's always... always him. She'll trust him, again, to guide her. She can find the middle ground.

She survives. So he has to. They promised, a very long time ago.


End file.
